“Get the kid free.” Al shoved her to the right. “I’ll cover.”
She rushed to the gurney. Al set himself in the middle of the lab, the gurneys on one side, the laboratory tables, the refrigerator, the computer screens and the ominous-looking freezer on his right.
He set the shotgun to his shoulder, watching the door.
Noir fumbled with the straps that held down the young man. He moaned. Not completely unconscious. Good if they had to move fast. She unbuckled him at the ankles and wrists but hesitated at disconnecting the IV. She had no idea what was in there. It could be a painkiller or a simple saline solution to help the guy recover enough for more tests. Or it could be poison. With Jill, you never knew.
Maybe she should wait for the fire department to arrive. Right, and leave him here with Jack? No.
The lab doors burst open.
Jack entered, carrying the injured Jill.
Noir drew in a breath. She’d completely forgotten how massive Jack was in person, and how scary.
Jill, cradled in her brother’s arms, turned her head to look at Al.
“You left me for dead,” Jill whispered.
“I left you for the first responders.” Al jutted out his chin and aimed the shotgun.
Noir wanted to yell and scream at Al to fire, but she knew what he was doing. He was buying her time to free the hostage.
“Jack, set me down on the gurney,” Jill waved her hands.
Noir disconnected the teller’s IV and made ready to run.
“Surrender and I’ll send the all-clear for the EMTs to come in,” Al said, backing away from Jack but keeping the shotgun steady.
Jack set Jill down on the gurney with more gentleness than Noir thought he possessed. The monster glared at Al. “You shot her. You have to die.”
He roared and rushed at Al with the force of a steamroller.
Chapter Ten
The video hadn’t prepared Al for the sight of the monster in front of him. Jack had to be at least nine feet tall. His too-small head sat on massive shoulders and a tree-trunk-like torso. Bulging circular growths crisscrossed his massive arms. His hands looked at least four times the normal size, and his bare feet were similarly huge.
All that came toward him with abnormal speed for something that big. Hell, couldn’t he shuffle slowly like the monsters in the movies?
Al fired, point-blank range. The shotgun kicked against his shoulder. He cocked and fired again. Before he could get off a third shot, Jack was on him. The damned monster ripped the shotgun from him. A giant paw closed around his wrist. Al screamed as his hand and wrist were crushed.
As pain tore through him, his eyesight blurred, but he still saw a hole in the monster’s shoulder from the shotgun shell. An opening. Al punched it with his free hand. Jack yelled and dropped him. Al crawled away, cradling his broken hand against his chest. His other hand, covered in Jack’s blood, left a wet, red trail of blood behind him.
He tried to breathe evenly, but the pain came in sharp, nasty waves. Spots appeared before his eyes. His body started to tremble. He was going into shock. He blinked to clear his vision. Where the hell was the damned shotgun? He’d fire one-handed if that was what it took.
Jack roared. He held his hands in the air and screamed like a wounded animal. Blood covered the front of his chest and streamed down one arm. But he was still standing.
Fuck.
White light filled the room. Noir!
Al held his hand tighter to his chest and tried to stand. Noir was between him and Jack.
She looked like a tiny elf standing in front of a giant, like David against Goliath. And, like David, she was winning. Jack, hurt and confused, was backing away.
For some reason, Al could see Noir more clearly than when she’d protected him in the ER. Maybe it was because he was further behind her this time, or maybe she had better control of it than before.
Calling what she was doing emitting a bright light wasn’t doing it justice. It was something more beautiful than that, something more poetic. It nearly made the searing pain in his hand lessen. She stood like some perfect angel, light streaming from her, clothing her in a radiance that made her appear otherworldly.
She was luminous.
And she wasn’t armed. All she had was light against that thing. Al turned his head to look around, breaking the enchantment, hoping to find the shotgun.
He didn’t spot the weapon, but he did see Jill struggle to her elbow, a gun in her hand. Like him, Jill was behind the illumination. She could see Noir.
She had a clean shot.
Al half-stumbled, half-ran to Jill. As she fired, he hit the edge of the gurney, throwing off her aim and dumping her onto the floor. She hit the floor with a squeal of pain and the gun fell from her grip. Al pounced on the gun and aimed it at her.
She didn’t notice him at all.
Jack squeaked, a strange childlike noise, and fell to the floor like a tree that had been cut off at the base.
Jill screamed and began to crawl to her brother.
Al thought Jill yelled “no”, but her scream was too high-pitched for him to make out the word. He stumbled over to the still-glowing Noir, keeping the weapon trained on the fallen Jack. Noir fell to her knees just as he reached her. He put his good arm around her for support.
Her glow began to dim, her skin tone began to return to normal, and her form faded back into invisibility. “I had to be so bright. I’ve never held it for that long. Tried not to let up until he fell. Took so much energy, Al.” She put her head on his shoulder. Pain slashed at him from his injured arm and wrist. Having her in his arms almost made up for that.
“You were beautiful. You are so beautiful.” He drew her against his chest, all the time watching Jill and Jack.
Jill didn’t seem to notice the threat from Al. She had collapsed over Jack, crying in great racking sobs. Al couldn’t tell if the blood seeping on the floor next to them came from the doctor or her monster brother. One of Jack’s eyes was gone. Only an empty socket remained. A nice, clean shot. Jill’s errant bullet had found the monster’s one weak spot, his brain.
“You hurt me, Jill,” Jack said in a voice that could have belonged to a child.
“I didn’t…I meant to save you!” Jill lifted her head, sobbing.
“You made me into this,” Jack said, his voice lower.
“I did not! I was trying to cure you, you needed help, I love you, I would never hurt you.” Jill held her brother’s large hand against her chest. It half-covered her body.
“I was almost normal when you started,” Jack whispered. “I’d have been okay. But I…forgive you. Sis, I’m cold.”
“I’m here, Jack, I’m here.” Tears streamed down her face.
Al swallowed through his pain. Noir had claimed Jill was the true problem. He hadn’t believed her. He’d seen what Jack had done at the bank. He’d considered Jack the real threat.
But Noir was right. Jill was the crazier one. Jill was the real monster.
Jack said no more. Jill knelt over his body, racked by now-silent sobs. Al winced at the throbbing agony that used to be his hand. He tightened his grip on the gun with his other hand.
Jill could still be a threat. At this point, however, there was so much blood covering her and her dead brother that Al had no idea how close she was to collapse.
Jill pulled a little surgical knife from her pocket. Dammit, she was crazy enough to rush an armed man with a little knife?
Noir gasped and curled into him. Al’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Jill put the knife to her own throat and slashed. She let out one last strangled cry and collapsed over her brother’s body.
He and Noir flinched as one. She jostled his hand and he cursed.
“Oh, God, your arm. I’m sorry, Al.” Noir moved out of his hold.
Al gritted his teeth. “’S’okay.” He closed his eyes and heard the sound of running footsteps coming toward them. “That’ll be help. I hope.” He took a deep bre
ath. “Get the car keys out of my coat. Take my car and drive home. I don’t want anyone to know you were here.”
“But you’re hurt!”
“They’ll get me to the ER. Doc Leslie will fix me up. Go! I’ll rest easier once you’re safe, partner.”
He felt her hands around his face. She kissed him. It almost made the pain vanish. Almost.
Chapter Eleven
Noir lingered until she saw the paramedics surround Al. Another team of them looked after the young man from the bank. He was still unconscious. He’d missed his rescue and the death of his captors.
Lucky guy.
It was hard staying hidden in the warehouse as she snuck back to Al’s car while holding his keys, but she managed. The vehicle was sitting right where it had been left, far away from the police and other emergency vehicles that now surrounded the warehouse. She pulled out quickly, hoping no one looked in her direction. It wasn’t as if they would see anything other than a car driving itself, at least.
She put the cape and hat back on for the walk up to Al’s apartment. Once inside, she paced. She should get fully dressed, go to the ER, talk to Dr. Leslie, find out how Al was doing. That hand looked bad. Bone had been sticking out.
The phone hanging on Al’s kitchen wall rang. She grabbed the receiver.
“Al?”
“Present and accounted for,” he muttered.
His voice sounded slurred. “What did Doc Leslie say?”
“That most of the wrist bones are broken. That my hand’s a mess. And he swore a few times. He’s patching it up for now. Said I was lucky an orthopedic surgeon was on duty tonight.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Nope, coming home. Not sleeping in some damned hospital bed.”
The slurring in his voice was worse. “Did they give you something for the pain, Al?”
“Morphine, I think. Great stuff.” He snorted. “Listen, Noir, you stay right there. Don’t run away. Stay.”
“I’m not running away from you, partner,” she said.
“Good. I’ll catch a cab soon as they put this to rights.”
Al barely made it up his steps. The pain was tolerable. It was the morphine making him loopy. Good thing Noir had his car keys and that morphine didn’t affect him like Irish whiskey or he would have really driven the car off the rooftop this time.
Noir met him in the hallway, covered by the cape. She must have been watching for the cab through the window.
“You stayed,” he said.
“Don’t sound so shocked.” She put her arm around his waist to support him and led him through his door.
She ditched the cape once they were inside, and he saw she was wearing one of his sweatshirts and a pair of his pajama bottoms. “Glad you’re here, Noir,” he muttered. He let her lead him to the bedroom. When she would have left him alone on his bed, he pulled her close.
“Stay,” he said again.
She put her arms around him from behind. “I’m not a dog, you know.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes and felt the drug pushing him to sleep. “You’re an angel. You’re luminous.”
The next week was the most normal week Noir had had since, well, since she could remember. She had a regular bed. She had meals on a regular basis. She wore normal clothes.
The sex hadn’t been part of her normal life before. At least, she thought it hadn’t. She decided it was a nice addition and would get even better once Al’s hand was healed or at least once Al was completely pain-free. He had to go to a specialist twice and spent an entire day getting outpatient surgery to repair some of the bones. Doc Leslie drove him home that day. There was one excellent side-effect. Al rambled when he was on painkillers. It was cute.
He insisted on heading to work the day after that surgery. Said he had paperwork and he had some dirty cops to roust off the force. She worried but didn’t say anything. She knew better than to tell Al not to be who he was.
She did like teasing him about being called a hero in Charlton City’s newspapers for his rescue of the hostage and for taking down “the mad scientist and her monster”. One of the paper’s headlines called him “Monster Killer”. She guessed Al liked that as little as he liked being called Detective Fixit. One of the stories had even speculated that he might be made chief of detectives. He’d like that. He’d be able to do something about corruption with that power.
She sat down with a cup of coffee to reread that one.
She’d never wanted to be a cop before, but Al set one hell of an example.
Of course, there was no way she could join Al on the force. With Jill dead, there was no cure for her condition. Not that she would unwish the death. Now no one else would be hurt by Jack and Jill.
“Hey, Noir, open the door and let me in!”
Al must be feeling better. He sounded crankier. She opened the apartment door to the sight of him balancing a pizza box with one hand. He held a manila folder pressed tight against his body with his elbow.
She took the pizza box from him. “What? Just pizza? No soda?”
“Nagging me after only a week?” But he grinned.
She set the pizza down on the coffee table with a flourish and put Al’s pizza on the plate for him. He still had a tough time with one hand out of commission. Despite the smell of grease and pepperoni wafting through her nostrils, she ate slowly, savoring every single bite.
She wasn’t alone on the street any longer. She didn’t have to be that person who wolfed down food, wondering where her next meal would come from. Whatever happened next, she wouldn’t go back to that. After all, Doc Leslie had repeated his job offer of hospital security guard. She could have a life. She wasn’t sure what kind of life, but just the thought of not being, well, figuratively invisible all the time made her feel good. Soon, she’d gather up the courage to ask Al to help her find out who she had been. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know just yet. She’d only just gotten happy being Noir.
“This is nice,” Al said between bites.
She smiled. “Yes, it is.”
“I’m glad you stayed.”
“You just like the regular sex.”
He grinned again. “Hell, yeah.”
After dinner, Al cleared off the pizza box, picked the big manila folder up off the floor and set it on the table. He stared at it for a few seconds.
“What’s in there that’s scaring you?” she asked.
“Some stuff I thought you might want to see. Ranges from bad to good news.”
“I thought I was done with bad news.”
“This is more like bringing up bad memories.” He pulled a copy of a photo from the folder. “We found this in Jill’s notes. It’s a picture of the two of them before Jill started experimenting.”
She took the photo and studied it. Jill looked younger but the same. “Wow.”
Jack towered over his twin. Yet he looked…normal. Well, somewhat normal. His face was misshapen, his brow too big, his jaw too large to be normal. But his body was in proportion.
“She made him worse.”
“Yeah, possibly, although I’m told gigantism can get worse over time. She certainly made him more volatile and crazy.” Al took the photo back. “He let her try to fix him because it was important to her. I wonder if it was as important to him, especially at the start.”
She leaned over the table, took Al’s face in her hands and kissed him. He kissed her back, and for a moment, she forgot about anything else. It was just the feel of his lips against hers, the smell of the city on his shirt and the flip-flop in her stomach as she realized he cared as much as she did.
“What was that for?” he asked as he drew back.
“Because if that’s the bad news, I really want to see the good news.”
“This part is not so much news as information.” He pulled out a business card. “Doc Leslie said to give you this. He said he asked around and that you’re not the only, um, unusual person out there. He said these people are worth trying. He said t
hey might be able to help you with the invisibility issue.”
The card said “Phoenix Institute”. It contained only a name, Beth Nakamora, and a phone number. She put it on the table. “I’ll think about it.” Other people like her? Invisible people? Or people who were freaks? She just might be curious enough to call.
“What else you got, Al?”
He tapped the folder against the table. “Let me ask you a question first. Have you figured out what you want to do with your life yet?”
She moved from the chair to sit next to him. She put her head on his shoulder. “In a week? Are you trying to get rid of me already?”
“Never.” He set the folder down and pulled her into his lap. He nuzzled her neck. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, drawing this one out for a long time. After he broke the kiss, he caressed her face. Her stomach settled. She felt bubbly, happy.
“So, humor me, Noir. Tell me what you’d like to do with your life beyond sexing me up.”
“I liked doing what we did to catch Jill.”
“You liked getting shot and risking your life?”
“I liked preventing other people from getting hurt. I got jazzed from it, but not just that, I felt like I’d accomplished something. I mean, I’m invisible but I wasn’t invisible. I mattered.”
She slid off his lap. “You have to know what I mean. Your hand is messed up. But you’re not planning to quit. The paper says you’re due for a promotion.”
Al was silent a long moment. “Helping people is a good thing.”
“You said we were partners. I liked that too.”
He nodded. “I can’t see a way to get you on the force. But unofficially, if you want to keep helping…”
He brushed her cheek with his finger. And he did it by instinct. He might not see what she looked like, but he saw her just the same.
“That’s not good enough, though, even if I’m selfish enough to think it’s perfect for me. You want a normal life; it can’t all revolve around me. You have to find a thing of your own.”
“You want me to go?”
“Hell, no, Noir.” He stared at her, intent. She’d never seen him more serious.
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